Every Second Counts
by dreamcatcher96
Summary: Moments from The Hunger Games and lyrics from Live Like We're Dying by Kris Allen.


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(None of this is my writing. I just blended.)

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Live Like We're Dying by Kris Allen

_The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins_

**Sometimes we fall down, can't get back up**

_Every time I lift my leg from the water, the pain rebounds so intensely I have to slide it back in._

**We're hiding behind skin that's too tough**

_This is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as an easy target._

**How come we don't say I love you enough?**

"_Katniss remember I -" he says and they yank us apart._

**Till it's too late, it's not too late**

"_I just want you to come home. You will try, won't you? Really, really try?" asks _

_Prim._

**Our hearts are hungry for a food that won't come**

_But the money ran out and we were slowly starving to death. There's no other way to put it._

**But we can make a feast from these crumbs.**

_Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each._

**We're all staring down the barrel of a gun**

_The word _tribute _is pretty much synonymous with the word _corpse_._

**So if your life flashed before you**

_As my last act of defiance, I will stare her down as long as I can see, which will probably not be an extended period of time, but I will stare her down, I will not cry out, I will die, in my own small way, undefeated._

**What would you wish you would have done?**

"_I can't go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to . . . to show the Capitol that they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games."_

**We gotta start looking at the hands of the time we've been given**

"_Sixty seconds to take in the ring of tributes all equidistant from the Cornucopia._

**If this is all we got then we gotta start thinking**

_I try to prepare for the next hour. The time allotted for the tributes to say good-bye to their loved ones._

**If every second counts on a clock that's ticking**

"_One." Maybe I'm wrong. "Two." Maybe they don't care if we both die. "Three!"_

**Gotta live like we're dying**

"_District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter._

**We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or to throw it all away**

"_Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," says Gale._

**Gotta tell them that we love them while we got the chance to say**

_At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love._

**Gotta live like we're dying**

_We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits._

**And if your plane fell out of the skies**

_We have to be standing in the square at two o'clock waiting for the names to be called out_

**Who would you call with your last goodbyes?**

_Through the crowd, I spot Gale looking back at me with a ghost of a smile._

**Should be so careful who we let out of our lives**

_She just has time to reach her hands through the mesh and say my name before the spear enters her body._

**So when we long for absolution, there'll be no one on the line**

_Peeta may end up losing his leg - but when I weigh this against him losing his life, what alternative do I have?_

**We gotta start looking at the hands of the time we've been given**

_Gale and I both agree that if we had to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet to the head, the bullet would be much quicker._

**If this is all we got then we gotta start thinking**

_Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it's not me. It's Primrose Everdeen._

**If every second counts on a clock that's ticking**

_Tomorrow at dawn, we will be roused and prepared for the arena_

**Gotta live like we're dying**

"_Stay alive," says Haymitch._

**We only got 86,400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or to throw it all away**

_This day has been endless. Could Gale and I have been eating blackberries only this morning?_

**Gotta tell them that we love them while we got the chance to say**

"_Remember this. I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you."_

**Gotta live like we're dying**

We both know they have to have a victor.


End file.
